SOUTH WEST FRANCE

Liz and I worked a season for a UK holiday company in Landes, about 40 minutes north of Biarritz, France.To jazz up our reception area I wrote a series of "off line blogs" chronicling our days off. Meant to be a sanitised travelogue, of the sort you find in an in-flight magazine, it didn’t always turn out that way.

        Athough we both know France quite well, having variously worked and holidayed here, Landes is new to us and we are discovering it for the first time, just like many of our guests. So here is a little off-line blog which we hope will help you along the same enchanting journey of discovery It is the unexpected, those last minute decisions that can lead to the best finds and the most rewarding experiences. After a hard days couriering Liz and I decided to delay our usual al fresco evening of salad and a glass of red wine sitting under the towering pines watching the wildlife, “look there’s, a red squirrel,” “where?”, “up on that tree peeking round, I think he’s eyeing your radishes”. Instead, we headed out, on our first trip to find a local bar for a couple of drinks.

We headed into Messanges and randomly went straight on at the roundabout in the village centre, and passed a likely looking venue on the right. We turned round in a lay-by a few metres down the road, where the fruit and veg man sets his stall. A sprinkler was damping down the dust and as I swung the car round jets of water from the industrial grade watering apparatus found the open window of the car. Suitably dampened we parked outside the bar, wandered across and perched outside on a couple of stools.

         Description, prosaic verbiage, cute analogies here would be superfluous. Instead consider a few items from the beer menu: “Westmalle" 9.5⁰ , Trappiste, triple fermentation,” “Guillotine", 9⁰ (petite Sœur de Délirium) or “Scotch Silly" 8^0. And 29 more, plus the specials board. ‘Nuff said I think. That’s the beers then, (lowest ABV 5⁰), then there’s the food. We didn’t go out to eat, but a glance at the menu changed that. A Moroccan tagine is, in our joint opinions, and for different reasons, one of the tastiest dishes in the world, and here in a bar we fell into by accident they serve the classic Lamb with Prunes, the amazing Lemon Chicken and a Vegetable Tagine, just as if we were in a little café half up the Atlas Mountains.Well, what were we supposed to do? It was délicieux, mes braves.

         We arrived on a Sunday night at about 7:30 and by 9 the bar/restaurant was filling up, mostly with French and Dutch vacationers

        So, in words of the late great Mr Spike Milligan, “plan nothing, then nothing can go wrong”.  It fact it went marvellously right. Sage advice indeed.

 

 

If you don’t go for the beer and the food go for the tree. Is it really possible, a tree with two trunks? It should be two separate plants, shouldn’t it? However, we couldn’t see the split. If you are a bit of a botanist and can explain this phenomenon, we would love to know.

Pete and Liz’s Off Line Blog, The Second.

 

It’s our “jour de repose”, our day off, and we are intending to scale a mountain, with the help of an electric motor and some cogs. We have heard that the mountain railway at La Rhune, on the French, Spanish border is an excellent day out and, purely, of course, in the interests of research we have risen from our bed at a ridiculously early hour and are heading southwards. In less than 90 minutes we are parking in the village of Ascain, only 2 kilometres short of the terminus, where we pause for coffee, and take stock of the weather. Its misty, the peaks of the Pyrenees shrouded in a wispy cotton wool of cloud, so we decide to come back another day, when we will be able to fully appreciate the reportedly magnificent views and can leave our woolly jumper’s in the car.

            Plan B, or perhaps it was an extension of plan A, sees us heading through Bera, a unexpectedly beautiful and charming town, the picturesque meander from one end to the other interrupted only by a single concrete monstrosity probably of a Russian design from the ‘60’s.

             We have been to San Sebastian once before, last year in fact, and so had some idea of where we going. Despite this snippet of accumulated wisdom, and some experience with Spanish road signposting we still managed to enjoy several moments of confusion as at several junctions the city was, or appeared to be, in two different directions. Despite this, and the multi circumnavigation of several roundabouts we eventually found ourselves in the city heading toward the seafront. Parking in the town is in cavernous underground garages, well lit, each bay displaying a green light if free. This attention to detail though comes at a modest price, it’s not the cheapest parking you will have encountered, but coming as we do from Weymouth where motorists are seen as a legitimately exploitable resource, it’s not too bad. San Sebastian, lunchtime, tapas, are an inseparable trio. The bar we randomly chose, and there are many, in each the counters crowded with small dishes and the premises crowded with locals, gave up five gastrically stimulating , raciones, tapas, and pintos, all various sizes of delicious nibbles, and 2 drinks all for €11.

            We headed out, following the signs for Irun, the border town where I, years ago, used to spend hours waiting for French and Spanish customs officers to stamp the necessary paperwork, and that is now a cluster of tobacconists and souvenir shops, where you inevitably find yourself asking, “are we in Spain now?” as you whiz through.  A few miles outside San Sebastian, having avoided the motorway, bought us, as it did last year, to a Carrefour, just off the main road, be careful or you will miss the slip; it is just past a large Leroy Merlin store on your right. There, many, though by no means all groceries are cheaper and petrol is around 14% less expensive than in France.

And so, home again, up the autoroute, stopping every so often to feed the ever ravenous Péage, 70 cents, €2.20, €3.30, but that’s OK, its all subsidised by lower fuel prices and inexpensive tapas, its seems a fair exchange.   

 

 

 

  Pete and Liz’s Off Line Blog, The Third.

 Peeking out from behind the curtains on our next Wednesday off, revealed a greyish early morning sky, not the azure blue, cloud free day we had been hoping for. Over coffee and jasmine tea we debated our options. After tossing a coin, we set off on our second attempt at the ascent of the mountain at La Rhune, with of course the help of a train.

Early season, early morning, well about 9.30, means that there is no queue at the booking office, and no re-enactment of the seven O five, Blackheath to Clapham Junction sardine tin commuter crush. Comfortably seated on the polished wooden benches of a train built at the beginning of the last century with enough room to dash from one side of the carriage to the other as the views switch flanks we await the off. 

The doors are secured by the train crew, a whistle is blown, the hundred year old electric motor, having benefited over the decades, from the occasional set of new brushes, jolts and shudders the old train into motion. The views from the train are spectacular; the sedate progress of the train, a modest 9kmh, 5½mph, gives us ample time to drink in the scenery and to click away with gusto, generating more than enough pictures to fill our hard drives. 

  It’s a cog railway, the steep gradients made possible by a feat of Victorian era ingenuity, the train a lovingly restored and maintained piece of engineering history was one of the earliest of its kind, the honour of the first though going, slightly bizarrely one feels, to the Americans and a tourist railway up Mount Washington. Apparently, there are four variations on cog railway mechanics in use around the world and this one uses the Stubbs system. I bet you didn’t know that.

            Around half an hour later, we are deposited 905 metres above sea level, and about 765 metres above our staring point just short of the summit. A “table de Orientation” at the very top lets us work out what we can see from this eyrie and the views are breathtaking, eagles soar below us, riding the thermals with a casual indifference that would put world champion glider pilots to shame. I wonder, can things soar below you? They were though, and we looked down on some of the biggest birds of prey, not just one or two, perhaps a dozen passed our way as we peered over the parapets down into the sky.

            Talking of parapets, you go for the views and that away from it all silence we so rarely experience these days. The architecture up there, it must be said, would win no awards, 50’s we guessed, whitewashed concrete angular buildings dispensing coffees, ice creams, sandwiches and meals, not we felt, given the location, at exorbitant rates. Should you be so minded you could pick up a flamenco dress or 5 litres of port for €9.40.

            It is a grand day out, the combination of quaint an old train, tranquil progress through a picturesque landscape and the vistas from the summit leave an indelible memory of a pleasant and worthwhile little adventure, and the eagles, well, that’s just the icing on the traditional Basque gateau.  

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Pete and Liz’s Off Line Blog, The Fourth.

It’s our day off again, my these Wednesday’s come around so fast, perhaps weeks are metric and therefore shorter here in France. Sadly it looked like it was going to be a day of lacklustre weather, overcast grey skies continually taunting us with the prospect of a downpour. In the event, though the day turned out lovely, sunny and warm, a proper holiday day.

A good French market is an experience that once enjoyed becomes moderately addictive. Needing a fix, we sallied fourth having picked a destination from the list in our reception. This was compiled from a guide provided (in French) by the local tourist information service, and needs desperately to be annotated with the experience of personal visits. Donning our researchers hats we set off to Seignosse in anticipation of some quality al fresco retail therapy. The “market” consisted of 4 stalls, only. I am sorry to say, we inscribed a tyre patterned circle in the adjacent car park and drove off, to Cap Breton. They have a market there too, its just inside buildings like a high street. Lots of shops selling knick knacks, and if you fancy adorning your sideboard with a quality model of a 4 masted sailing schooner several shops can assist, at we felt reasonable prices. Clothes, shoes, handbags ranging from budget to quality are on hand as are souvenirs, restaurants and an African “restauration rapide”, which we took a fancy to and so will be giving its menu a spin in the near future.   

From Cap Breton we followed signs to the Côte Sauvage and paused briefly to walk over the dunes and gaze along the sandy beach, wondering if the signs saying “Page Naturist” and prohibiting cameras meant that, in summer this is a nudist beach.

          

  

                      By now lunch was on our minds and so we headed back toward the Camping and Messanges Plage where we had heard that the beach snack bar was worth a try. It’s sited on the top of the dunes, half way between the car park and the Atlantic Ocean, with we are glad to say magnificent views of the later and none of the former. It was true, what we had heard. The salad was formidable “mes braves”, and other diners, local French as well as tourists, were tucking into plates of prawns or steaks of morue (cod), it all looked delicious. It’s a busy place, and is open from noon to 9:30 pm every day. Customers report queues in the evening. A bit of a find, this, and it should be kept a closely guarded secret, no facebooking now.

 

 Local merchant tries to solve the communities problems,

seems like a reasonable deal

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Pete and Liz’s Off Line Blog, The Fifth.

Verification that the S.I. week is briefer than its imperial equivalent seems now only to be a matter of time. Here we are at another day off. We begin at Vieux Boucau market, which we are happy to report is not a disappointment, except for the absence of the geranium man, whose blooms customers have recently exported to the west coast of Scotland. Keen to make his acquaintance and begin our own collection we vainly made a full tour of all the stalls. However, there were plenty of cooked foods, fruit, cheeses, meats, jewellery and knick-knacks to make up for it, well almost.   

          Despite recent success with Spike Milligan’s philosophical approach to planning, we have destinations in mind today the first being the nature reserve at Marais d’Orx, just south of Cap Breton. 768 Hectares, 1900 acres, or 3 square miles of secluded wildlife habitat centred on a lake, we arrive unprepared. The days forecast was cloudy, which was pretty much how it looked when we set off, but by the time we rolled into the reserve’s car park the sun had well and truly got its hat on. Wearing inappropriately long pantaloons, lacking sun lotion and hats, we strolled along the banks of the lake, leaking a lot. Our efforts though were rewarded by the sighting of several herons, a stork on the distant island standing, as is their wont, on something wooden, an egret and a beaver. The sight of the furry rodent rooteling in the weeds, it sodden flanks glistening in the light dappled by the overhanging branches was worth the trip alone.

 

            We are trying our hands at wildlife photography, a feat harder than tightrope walking over Nigeria falls in steel capped timberlands. We have made it especially hard for ourselves by not having the right kit. Our lenses aren’t long enough, we forget the tripod, and of course animals are capricious and just don’t understand the golden rule of standing in the light, best side toward the photographer. To cap it all when we got back to the centre, and were downing a well-deserved can of chilled Nestea we came across a magazine featuring the world’s top 100 nature photographs. Clearly, compared with the planets best, we have a very, very tall mountain to climb. No matter, the photography is an add on, the animals we saw, whose world we briefly shared, made it all worthwhile.

            From the reserve we headed into Cap Breton to make good on last weeks promise to try out the African restaurant. It turns out be run by a husband and wife, he is Polish and she is from the Ivory Coast, a republic in western Africa, bordered by Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Liberia and Guinea. A former French colony, Côte d’Ivoire became independent on August 7, 1960. Its capital is Yamoussoukro. In area, it is 32% larger than the UK. Who said holidays aren’t educational?   

            Reliance on the internal combustion engine meant that Peter was limited to soft drinks, normally an unexciting prospect. Here though they have three “squashes” made from the berries, leaves and roots of the continent. He had a ginger based drink, more than, delicious, a very welcome change from fizzies and excellent value at €2.50. A not particularly huge smoothie in a nearby bar would cost you €5. The mains of Poulet Yassa, chicken, onions and olives in a spicy sauce and Foutou, beef and plantin in piquant gravy were tasty and filling. We got out, with a demi of wine for Liz, and some ice cream each for €38. If you fancy something a little different, this informal little eatery will enchant, replete and educate. And it ain’t pizza.

 

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Peter and Liz's Off Line Blog, The Sixth.

 

It’s a tricky one this, where to take my infinitely better half for her birthday, a  swanky lakeside dining room with white jacketed waiters, crisp tablecloths and a ten page wine list or the Snack Bar de la Plage?  Put like that, the choice, if I want to enjoy next year as a married man seems like a no brainer. We went to the Snack Bar of the beach. This isn’t though really a snack bar, it does do sandwiches and draught ice cream, but in the evenings this modest shack serves truly delicious food, nothing swanky, steaks, salads, gambas, cod, a few other things, no starters and the desserts are not home made. The gambas though, Liz tells me, transcend excellence and transmit the diner to hitherto untrodden plateaus of nirvana. The salads are pretty good too, so good that one is my choice on my wife’s birthday dinner, which really says all that needs to be said about just how above ordinary they are. The food’s good then, the house white is superb, the service efficient, professional, friendly and they have a sense of humour, by which I mean they laugh at my jokes. None of this though, is why this place is packed in the high season, why people will wait an hour for a table and it is a little bit of a local legend. The star of this show is the Atlantic Ocean. You have a front row seat, atop the dunes on what must be one the most beautiful stretches of unspoilt coastline in Europe watching the waves crashing on the shore, and the slowly setting sun turning the sea the most unlikely shades of cobalt blue, the sky streaked with fire, contrasting spectacularly with wisps of jet-black cloud. Who needs starched napkins when the sky is the floorshow, the cabaret the heavens and the star mother nature at her most vivid and breathtaking? Next year looks like a safe bet.

 

 

France, Brittatany, Summer 2011, Chapters 9 to 11

Liz and I worked a season for a UK holiday company in Brittany.To jazz up our reception area I wrote a series of "off line blogs chronicling our days off. Meant to be a sanitised travelogue, of the sort you find in an in-flight magazine, it didn’t always turn out that way

SUMMER 2011

 

Pete and Liz’s off line blog 9

Today we went to Roscoff. To quote the Brittany Ferries in-voyage magazine, “it is always a surprise for first time visitors, its charming old town, and quirky shops contrasting with the wide waters”… a sentence unlikely to win any travel writer’s award, nevertheless, true enough. You can catch a boat to the Isle de Batz, ride a road train around the town, or wonder why there appears to be a bridge from the harbour to an apparently random point mid channel. My theory for this seemingly pointless construction centred on concrete fatigue, but it turns out the walkway leads to the deep water ferry. We avoided the bars and cafés on the front, obviously installed to trap one visit travellers and infiltrated the Boulangerie Centrale only one street back and favoured by the French. A winner.

          I have always thought eating out should be an experience, a mini adventure, and involve more than just having a plate of food plonked in front of you. In Thailand, in a small town called Bang Saphan Yai such an eatery thrives. On each table sits a small cooking machine. This is stoked by a man wondering amongst the chairs and scampering children with a long handled shovel filled with glowing red hot coals. Meat, stock, eggs and leaves are brought to the forum and knowledgeable diners concoct a soup in the cauldron atop the cooker before grilling the meat. Apart from the health and safety implications of transporting high temperature cooking fuel in a crowded hospitality venue this is a most agreeable way of dinning. Is this a random excursion into the irrelevant? Not at all, should you choose to seek out an establishment hidden away in the back streets of Quimperlé a similar but considerably less hazardous experience awaits. The wonderfully named Tête du Lard, which translates into fathead, offers a Brasérade ~ a table top barbecue ~ a platter of raw meat, very moorish sauces, sautéed potatoes, salad and quite to lot to do.  But for those who feel the cooking should be done for them, the restaurant will happily plonk exquisite dishes on the table. Marinated lamb with thinly sliced sautéed roasted peppers and tomatoes, divine darling. Good tucker in stylish surroundings, recommended, highly.

 

 

          A small side street (Rue Ellé) leads off from behind the church, on the right if coming from the town bridge, follow this up over another very picturesque little bridge and turn left. Follow this road until you feel you can go further and you will have arrived. 

  

Pete and Liz’s off line blog 10



Herman

Melville

(1819-1891)

         Funny how things turn out, the wheel of life, the  interconnectedness of things, serendipity perhaps. I have recently finished reading Moby Dick which I humbly submit to the committee as the greatest book of all time. Today we decided for no better reason other than it was raining to go to the Museum of Fishing in Concarneau. And there they have models of New Bedford whalers, the very ships Ishmael would have set sail in and a lovingly preserved skiff, the ridiculously small rowing boat in which they pursued sperm whales, 18^th whaling was not for the fainthearted. Seeing the little wooden craft they dropped over the side, in the middle of the ocean, as far from land as it possible to get, into waters which could turn from mill pond to maelstrom in minutes leaves quite an impression. Whalemen endured incalculable perils without hope of salvation should the whale turn too suddenly or a rope snag. And there in front of you is one of these vessels where men of supreme courage battled the fates and in the case of this surviving exhibit, presumably lived to tell the tale. This was one of the very boats in which, and I quote, “we rowed for several hours”. One short sentence that says so much.  Not just steamed timbers and caulked planks, a once spume soaked, blood caked tool of the trade. This is what museums are for!!!    
      The museum is an interesting way of spending a couple of hours or so, much to look at and absorb and although most of the explanatory signs are in French there are a few English translations. These though tend to the bland and ineffectual. A nod to a multi lingual audience without much thought to content.

   The museum is also an astounding display of the model builder’s craft with numerous miniature ships, and dioramas of sea and shore showing different trawling methods. There is a ¹/₆ ^th scale model of a small sail equipped fishing vessel, which took 5 people 5 years to complete, a work of art in itself.

  There are no interactive displays and one video, in French, so small children may not fully appreciate the richness of the experience but you do get to go round a real trawler, a small one perhaps but it needed 10 crew or so and is an intriguing glimpse into the world behind the fish finger.

 

  

We enjoyed it, felt culturally improved and learnt a thing or two. Worth the €6.50 entrance fee, definitely, no doubt about it.

 

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This Tuesday we thought we would be cultural and set out for Port Louis, across the bay from Lorient to the Museum of the Indies Company, the French equivalent of the British East India Company, who between then shamelessly exploited the “New World”. We took in the centre of Port Louis on the way, a pretty little town worthy of a stroll down the main street. Interesting shops slowed our progress until we found somewhere for morning coffee. 

 

            It’s not often you pass llama and two thirds of a push-me-pull-you grazing laconically beside the road, not often, in fact hardly ever, just this once in fact. Either that or they put something in the coffee.

             

Although the motivation for our visit was the Indies Museum, having just read “The Prize of All the Oceans” by Glyn Williams an account of dastardly seafaring by the British government of the mid 1700’s the €6 entrance fee turns out to include the National Maritime Museum and access to the place where it is all housed, “one of the most beautiful citadels on the French coast”.  A walk around the ramparts, dated 1616, 48 years before lager was invented, offers some spectacular views of the harbour and to quote the English translation in the museum’s brochure “the roadstead to the l’île de Groix”. For roadstead read sea lane??

 

The guardroom, an empty chamber under the castle is just that until you wonder what it must have been like, filled with men without access to power showers, Imperial Leather or DVDs in winter clustered around the fire, doing their best to stave off the cold and boredom of life in the Duke’s service.

 

We moved on through the Powder Room and an exhibition of munitions and maritime artillery to the Naval Museum a section of which is dedicated to the Sauvetage de la Mer, the French lifeboat service and if you’ve ever thought your cross channel ferry was a bit wobbly, think again. Would you go out in mountainous seas sweeping over the superstructure of massive cargo vessels to stand on the aft of a rescue tug to haul listing freighters to safety? Personally, no but it’s a good job there are men with the intestinal fortitude to brave the ocean’s worst tantrums otherwise that container of Taiwanese Christmas decorations might never make the shelves. 

     We are in awe of the sea and its potential to wreak havoc on man’s best laid plans. This is a place to appreciate just what power it can unleash and the professionalism and courage of those men and woman work with it.  

 

Another section is dedicated to underwater archaeology and is a fascinating glimpse into a world that we mere leisure divers limited to 40 meters or so will never encounter. Deep under the ocean at depths where a leak in a submersible can produce a jet of water powerful enough to cut a man in half, wearing t shirts and looking more like actors in an Alien film scientists unearth and recover long lost cargo’s, china plates, a ship’s bell. And after watching the film you can see the objects themselves. Wonderful!

 

We moved on to the original reason for the trip, the museum of the Indies Company. Despite the spin, these weren’t on the whole very nice people, they traded in slaves, press ganged the unwary onto ships crews, and didn’t particularly mind if a few hapless souls fell out of the rigging. This museum features impressive models of the vessels of the era, showing in detail the stowing of the cargos, that the porcelain went to the lowest point and so on, but curiously no holds of ensnared humanity enduring the indifference of a morally bankrupt trading system. There is a passing reference to slavery it has to be said but on the whole this is a heavily sanitised view of a barbaric enterprise.  

 Finally there is the “Memories of the Elephant” exhibition,  a themed display revolving loosely around the “fascination and exoticism”  of this “emblematic figure”.  Or stuff with elephants on, ceramics, clothing, paintings and suchlike.

 

An enjoyable few hours, lots to see and to think about although in places it is more interesting for what it doesn’t say. There is unfortunately little in English to read, all the films and audio interviews are in French. Nevertheless if any of these subjects light your fire or you are a museum junkie recommended.

 

By the way a push-me-pull-you is a friend of Dr Doolittle. The picture is a Bactrian camel originally from south-western Mongolia and north-western China.

In 2005 there were less than a 1000 left in the wild.  

 

 

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Off- Line Blog 11, What a Wonderful World

I have made a startling discovery. Trees, can instantly relocate themselves without warning. I know this because I backed our car into one, and irretrievably damaged the tailgate, so much so that we couldn’t open it and had to tape a plastic bag over the place where the rear window should have been.

            So, last Tuesday, a day off, the project was finding a new one. The cost of a new rear door from a dealer would have been astronomical, so much in fact that we didn’t even bother asking the question. Instead we went to a local Casse or scrap-yard. These are it seems big business in France and run much like an Argos. We entered through the electric sliding doors, (name one scrap-yard in England so equipped) and moseyed up to the counter, “Have you got?” I enquired in my very best French, “a tailgate for this car”. “Which car?” he replied waving in the direction of the parking. We nipped outside and he popped around to the back of the vehicle for maybe a quarter of a second. “I have one in red” he said.  Back inside I looked around at the shelves towering to the ceiling of the enormous warehouse, and out through the window at a yard big enough for several simultaneous games of polo. How, I wondered did he instantly know he had one in red?  A few moments a couple of mechanics appeared carrying a tailgate, exactly and precisely a copy of the one forlornly clinging to the back of our car, except for the colour. First asking price €150, a muttered “C’est un plus cher”, “that’s a little expensive” and the price dropped to €120. Deal struck the door was carried outside. The problem, which if you have being reading carefully will come as no surprise is that it is very difficult to load a tailgate into an estate car when the tailgate on the car will not open. I climbed inside, moving aside the detritus of a travellers life and gave the inside of the door a hefty kick. Problem solved and our new acquisition was loaded in.

       

 

             We stopped on the way back to ask the local garage if they could fit it. Not today he replied. Tomorrow, come back tomorrow. When was the last time a garage in England even admitted it had that word in its vocabulary? Getting an appointment in a British garage is like trying to meet the pope. So I went back tomorrow. Once he had ripped off the temporary plastic bag window, the trim on the inside of the tailgate and hit something inside with a hammer the boot popped open and we were able to extract the shiny new tailgate. The wiring loom that modern cars demand of its doors had been chopped off on the new door and this discovery by the mechanic produced a number of sounds that any customer of a UK mending business knows equates directly into years of debt. He handed me a screwdriver and pointed at the inside of the now raised “porte arrière grand”, big back door, and walked away. I started to unplug the loom at the various connectors prising them apart with my penknife. He wondered back out and said, in French, of course, something along the lines of “if you need any tools go and help yourself”. The surprise of being given the run of a stranger’s expensive range of specialist tools and the trust he was showing was astounding. Give me something vaguely technical to fiddle with though and I am as happy as pig in manure. So I just got on with it, wandering into his workshop to find the various odd screwdrivers and ratchet bits needed to strip the electrics from a Vauxhall tailgate. Once all the motors, latches and locks were off I strolled back in to find this extraordinary man and discover what he had planned as the next move. He called his colleague over and they adroitly removed the old tailgate and fitted the new one, dealing with the gas struts and all in less than 5 minutes. He then took a roll of tape from his pocket, grabbed a wire coat hanger lying in the back of the car and in a few deft moves worthy of the finest of close up magicians pulled the new loom into place. It was left to me to reconnect it. During this delicate process the company mobile rang. Please know gentle reader, that I had intended to drop the car off and spend a leisurely hour in a local bar, (drinking coffee) before collecting my restored vehicle and returning to Le Camping. At this point in the proceeding I had been away for 2½ hours or so. It turns out I was need back at work. Why I wondered did things happen the one time I was away from site and engaged in complicated vital war work? I went to find my new mentor. His reply was approximately, “it is lunchtime we are going to eat, come back at two”, he strolled out with me, and closed the tailgate, the first time this had been possible for some weeks. I started to climb into the car but he stopped me, opened the tailgate (first time for that too) and took out the number plate. I screwed it back on and drove off suddenly realising I had quite a collection of his tools still in the back of the car.  Back on site I dealt with the customer’s problem and actually had time to eat something before venturing back to the garage. The work was nearly done, it turns out, and 45 minutes later I was screwing the last of the trim back in place and scouring the boot to make sure that none of his tools had wedged themselves in. I went to a dark and distant corner of his cluttered garage to sort out payment.

 

 

      I had realised early on in the proceedings that he was probably trying to save me money, and getting me to do the easy bits freed him up to do work he had booked in. The village garage proprietor was doubtless friends with the campsite owner and one his best customers.  I was though unprepared for what happened next. “Merci monsieur, c’est fini, toute marche, c’est combien?  That may not be perfect French for “thanks sir, everything is working, how much do I owe you?”  but he clearly got the gist of my Franglais. I do not remember his exact reply, but it was in précis, “nothing”. I looked at him, unable to say anything in English, let alone form a coherent French sentence. I managed a “Vous étés sur?” which might or might not mean “are you sure?” I shook his wrist, and here may I impart a small piece of protocol I learnt that day, you don’t shake a French mechanic by the hand when his hands are covered with the soil of toil, the wrist is considered an acceptable alternative. With lost of mercis and au revoirs I departed.

            This was by all accounts an extraordinary and uplifting experience, a day and a man who will forever have a place in a corner of my mind. Why he trusted me with his tools, why he chose to offer his years of professional experience for no payment I still don’t know, that he did was of course a result, not just because I saved a few quid, always a bonus, but far more than that, he was a genuinely nice guy, a formidable engineer and according to Le Camping, the last honest motor mechanic in France, somebody who changed the way I look at the world, somebody it was a privilege to have briefly encountered. And the tragedy is, I don’t know his name, his workshop bears no signboards, why would he need them, legends don’t need to advertise.  Not just another day, but one which makes you glad you took the job and almost makes you glad you broke the car in the first place, a dented bumper and two tone bodywork a small price to pay for the richness of such an experience. I can’t wait for a customer’s car to break down; there is only one possible recommendation. 

France, Brittatany, Summer 2011, Chapters 5 to 8

Liz and I worked a season for a UK holiday company in Brittany, France. To jazz up our reception area I wrote a series of "off line blogs" chronicling our days off. Meant to be a sanitised travelogue, of the sort you find in a in-flight magazine, it didn’t always turn out that way.

SUMMER 2011

Pete and Liz’s off line blog 5 

 

           This week we didn’t go anywhere special, it was a day of doing things……. Of haircuts and shopping and barbecuing.  

            Haircuts are part of life’s ritual. Some basic arithmetic tells us that we go to the barbers maybe 600 times during a 75 year lifespan. Most of these visits fade from the memory together with the rest of life’s regular trivia. But a few stick in the mind, for whatever reason, and getting a haircut outside of dear old England can end up a forever remembered event, like ones first kiss, or where we were the day Margaret Thatcher resigned.

            A haircut in Thailand which took over an hour because the girl was so intimidated by this farang (white foreigner), she cut hesitatingly every hair she should could find, those on the top of the head, on the nape of the neck and those which poke annoyingly out of ones cranial orifices. She rubbed in with masseur like vigour various emoluments, gave a little shoulder massage and only stopped when she ran out of ideas. Or a haircut in a Paris suburb in a salon more used to afro’s than the balding pate of an Englishman. At one point I was surrounded by beautiful black girls, some showing me a book of aspirational styles, other discussing the finer points of the forthcoming procedure. That’s one I won’t forget.

                   
               I remember a piece of a TV programme by Desmond Morris, he of body language fame, author of The Naked Ape and an expert on human non-verbal communication, when he said we put ourselves in potentially lethal situations based on trust and cultural expectation, and he cited a visit to the barbers, “you allow” he expounded “this man to put a cut throat razor to your neck, not something you would ordinarily let happen”. This came to mind in shop in an arcade in the back streets of Athens on a Saturday afternoon, every other shop was closed, and the area was deserted. We could have been the two last people on the planet.

Remarkable conversations take place from the chair, temporally imprisoned and immobile, you seek reassurance and a little conversational stimulation from the scissor jockey, who in turn is delighted to find a customer who wants to discuss more than the weather or the appalling state of the local roads. In Bristol, where we were running a pub, I nipped out for a quick trim, and as an opening gambit mentioned my involvement with the hostelry on the hill. He spent the entire haircut telling me how to swindle the brewery, in great detail. It was that sort of area. In Weymouth a little barber’s shop can be found at one end of a backstreet alley. It is open for no more than 2½ hours at a time and not at all on Mondays. That the proprietor and sole occupant has a military background is obvious from the reunion posters in his window. Sitting in his chair one day the conversation turned to his early days in the army. “I wanted to be in the parachute regiment, but I was too short” he said, “but then someone discovered I’d just qualified as a barber and I grew two inches overnight”. The conversation rambled on until he said, “I cut hair on the Falklands for a year”. This sounded suspiciously like the beginnings of a Monty Python sketch. He continued, “I was the only NCO with his own accommodation, they gave the flat above the Island’s barber’s shop”. Well, if I ever go on a TV quiz show and they ask me my claim to fame, I can say, “I’ve been shawn by the Falkland’s Barber”.

Haircuts for us blokes in France seem ludicrously expensive to me. Used to paying around £6 for a quick trim, I can’t seem to get away with much under €15 here. I went to the barbers in the Intermarché complex at Quimperlé. No complaints, fine workmanship or rather workladyship. It’s just I would prefer not have to help pay off the national trade deficit every time my few hairs need reformatting to confirm to socio-cultural expectations. But we had a lovely barbecue, and that’s makes everything well with the world.   

  

 

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Liz and Pete's Off-Line Blog 6
 

 

Well another day of rest, another day to get out and confirm our strengthening conviction that we have somehow landed up in a rather pleasant part of the world. The sun in shining, the forest glows green in the late morning light, the roads are empty, the windows down and the warm air whips in bringing with it the fragrances of a rural community, not all it must be reported, likely to get into an Airwick product.   

 

                   The plan is to meander coastward and take luncheon at Suroît, a restaurant previously visited and to which we have vowed to return. On the way we chance to pass through Moëlan-sur-Mer, where Tuesday is evidently Market day. A few minutes into our stroll it becomes evident that this is a bit of a find, the stalls stretch out into the distance, and we are regretting having stocked up at the local Carrefour for the week. If you are planning a visit here, ensure firstly that your larder is empty and secondly that you are hungry. There are good things to eat on sale and a myriad of fresh meat, fruit, vegetables and fish to be had. We came across a stall selling Vietnamese goodies, and we intend to become regular customers. Another sold twenty or more different types of sausages, dried, like chorizo or salami. Six of these delicious looking charcuteries can be had for €10 and we have adjusted our provisions budget accordingly. This might not quite be foodie nirvana but it’s pretty damn close.  

On then to the left bank of Doëlan and Le Suroît, closed Wednesday’s. Full of locals enjoying an al Fresco “dejeuner” (lunch) we joined them and were not disappointed. Liz had the Salad Chèvre, goats cheese on toast served warm on a huge pile of greenery just to confirm her recollection that this was indeed the king of salads and Peter went for the tuna steak served with a timbale of rice and of course green beans and a garlic mayo which would probably count as ordnance in some parts of the world. Home then, and Peter made plans to sleep in the spare bedroom. The menu included Moules in a variety of forms, fresh grilled sardines, langoustines as well as steaks and salads.  There is a children’s menu too in case you want to share this find with your offspring.

It seems that French Cuisine, in spite of the proliferation of Macdonald’s and supermarket cafeterias (avoid) is alive and having a whale of a time.
 

Liz and Pete’s Seventh Blog

 



Various Teas, Infusions, Cakes and Pastries

This Tuesday we thought we would pop over to Concarneau to have a look at the old city, as recommended by several customers. This we did by way of the market at Moëlan-sur-Mer, where we bought spices, 6 saucisson for €10 and some sun dried tomatoes, not a haul that does justice to the wealth of produce on sale but we had no cold bag and intended to stay out for the day. In Concarneau weakened by our intense shopping and the enormous distance travelled we were in urgent need of a coffee, which readers of previous blogs will know is a feature of our days out. We parked opposite the ramparts and made a beeline for the nearest café, which advertised cakes. Unfortunately despite the promises they had none and we made do with pain tartine et confiture, bread, butter and jam, frankly disappointing. We wondered across the bridge leading to the walled city and as we turned the corner the street of a thousand souvenir shops hove into view. The first two shops we passed sold ice cream and if marked for presentation would score 11/10. It didn’t taste half bad either. The old city is packed with galleries, restaurants, clothes and gift shops where for example, a fair sized model of a three masted sailing ship could be yours for €89. It is also home to Musée de Pêche, The Museum of Fishing. We didn’t venture in but if you have an interest in that sort of thing it might well float your boat. We passed on the tempting offer of a pirate’s raft, pirate not included and wondered how many pine lighthouses we could get back to England where they wood go down a storm.

We read with interest the story of a canon, parked just outside the Governor’s Tower. If the notice board is to be believed, the ship on which this and many similar pieces of artillery were billeted sank in a feat of misnavigation. In an attempt to save the vessel the cannons were thrown over the side. The board suggests, in my view anyway, that there was some surprise amongst those doing the chucking that these heavy pieces of iron sank to the seabed. That might not, of course, be a fair report of what actually happened but the mists of time, an editor’s blue pencil, and some over cropping of historical actualitie leave the visitor wondering why it is necessary to report that several tons of metal plunged into Davy Jones Locker. It feels a bit like being astonished when rain plummets from up to down. The good Burghers of Concarneau have provided us with a comedy moment, why put up truly interesting and meaty stuff when you can report that gravity sucks?  But this is a moan, over frankly a rather trivial point, not unlike the customer of a London theatre who wrote to the management complaining a comma missing from a foyer poster had so ruined her evening she was compelled to demand a refund.  

 

 

            Concarneau is charming, there are some good things on sale and the restaurants look appetising and busy. If this is your kettle of fish the plaice is worth a few hours of your time, and it is really not very far away, half an hour, 40 minutes at the most should crack the journey.  Good souveniring.   

           

 

Liz and Pete’s Off-Line Blog 8

Well another day off and no plan. Having no plans means, if I may quote Spike Milligan, that nothing can go wrong. So in anticipation of an incident free day we set out in a randomly chosen direction, which turned out to take us into Vannes. We ended up parking near the quayside and wandered along the selection of mandatory water front cafés and bistros, peppered in this city, with kebab stalls suggesting that a university must be near. We sat in the Place Gambetta, drank our coffees and watched the day go by. Gambetta it seems was a man of politics active in the later part of the 19^th century; at least that’s what I think the sign said. Just off the Place, which should be pronounced, plass, is a street of interesting looking shops where if you happen to want to buy a diving mask with integral high definition camera you can. Lovers of high fashion will have a field day with the various clothes shops and any handbags bought can be filled with souvenirs from the adjacent boutiques. We could have ridden the road train around the city and explored deeper into Vanne’s charms but instead

 

 we struck out again, following the estuary, through Senne, which had a lovely port and ended in Port Anna, a small harbour consisting of not very much at all, an isolated food stall and fishermen going about their daily life. And that was the meanderings of the day over, a whiz round a big Carrefour with scales that could recognise veg. and some tempting fish, to whose charms we succumbed and so ended the day BBQ’ing some mackerel. Mr Milligan was right, no plans, no problems. 

 

 

 

The plaice for a good fishy tale.

 

 

 With this purchase, pirates included